Expressions – What Does Don’t Tell It to Nobody Mean?

expressions

What does "don't tell it to nobody" mean?

does it mean "tell it to everyone"?

And Grammar says

GRAMMAR: Negatives Don’t use nothing with another negative word such
as ‘not’. Use anything. You say: I could not find anything suitable.
✗Don’t say: I could not find nothing suitable.

Best Answer

If you were to parse the sentence literally, that's what it would mean. (Or perhaps tell it to anyone or tell it to someone.)

However, in reality, it's a kind of double-negative slang.

What it really means, idiomatically, is:

Don't tell (it to) anyone.


It's the same kind of informal expression as:

I didn't do nothing.

This expression, despite its literal meaning, is actually used to express:

I didn't do anything.


In this context, nobody and nothing don't have their normal meaning; instead, they are used as a way to increase the emphasis on the negative.

Related Topic